I own a 2005 Scion xB. I mention that by way of admitting that I may not be the best critic to assess the gut-level effectiveness of History channel’s American Top Gear. It’s not that I hate cars, or driving. I’m from Michigan! But I’ve always been attracted to the underpowered weirdos of the car world—the xBs, the VW Things, the AMC Gremlins, the Renault LeCars—cars that, if they were human, would have inhalers and pants pulled up to their chests. (Here’s my take on Pimp My Ride and car culture, from back when I owned a mouthwash-green Mercury Tracer.) So while I found the new Top Gear fun enough, I’m going to leave it to the fans of cool cars out there to tell me if it revved your engines as the UK original did.

I do enjoy a good beer, however! Which is not unrelated; one reason I enjoy living in Brooklyn is that I can own a car, yet take the subway to a bar and not worry about driving home. So I was much more the target for Discovery’s new Brew Masters last night, a reality show for beer nerds, exploring the eccentric brewing ways of the Dogfish Head brewery. In last night’s episode, they crafted an Ethopian-influenced “fusion” beer to commemorate the anniversary of Miles Davis’ Bitches’ Brew album:

Now that’s a show about a high-performance factory model I can get behind. Any Tuned Inlanders take either show for a test drive?